Sage’s Rage: Who you calling fake. It’s real, I bought it…

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i’m a sucker for reality tv but i’ve come to realize that enough is enough. no one believes those stories are really true. they need to give up the lines about their fake lives. new storyline please…. here’s a great read from one of my favorite emag’s CherryOnTop about the problem with ‘unscripted’ shows…

Lipstick and Brass Knuckles: Is Reality Television Sending Young Girls the Wrong Message?

Every time my two-year-old niece gets upset, she folds her arms about her chest and scrunches her face until you can see the tension steaming from her nose. All of my attempts to console her while in this state are futile being that whenever I try to offer comfort, she just balls up her little fist and swings as hard as she can towards my torso. She is only two. She can barely pronounce “uncle” without skipping a syllable; her fists are all she knows when it comes to communicating anger. However, behavior such as this is to be expected from a child who hasn’t learned the unforgiving nature of consequences yet. Her near future will be filled with a plethora of time-outs and scoldings until she is mature enough to realize that “hitting” is not how one is supposed to express their feelings, or is it?

Today, if you tune in to any of the more celebrated reality television shows (Basketball Wives, Love & Hip-Hop, Bad Girls Club, Mob Wives, etc.) you’ll find that many of the women who star in these programs share a lot in common with my niece, and I am not referring to age. The producers of our reality television generation have found gold in pitching concepts that focus distinctly on an all-women cast. The rationale used while choosing such a direction is that women are instinctually predisposed to find conflict with other women, which in turn, makes for good television. Though such a notion at first glance could easily be discarded as sexist, it is these networks record-breaking ratings that grant this statement a certain air of truth.

One reality television starlet in particular who knows the sweat of a rumble all too well is Basketball Wives star Evelyn Lozada. If you tune in to any given episode of the VH1 show, you could probably find Evelyn engaged in either a shouting match with a once proclaimed “friend”, or being restrained from throwing whatever inanimate object she can get her hands on. Recently, a petition boycotting Lozada’s violent outbursts has steam rolled massive support, just as news breaks that the reality show is in talks of being turned into a movie. The creator of the petition writes: “The violence on ‘Basketball Wives’ is horrible and disgraceful. Physical assaults, threats, verbal abuse, and harassment. VH1 is rewarding this behavior by giving Evelyn a spinoff. Don’t reward negative behavior.”

What message are we sending to our upcoming generation of women? When my niece throws her fist at me, I scold her for being a bad girl. Yet, in a few years she will realize that it is by being a “Bad Girl” that offers her the opportunity to live in a mansion for a few months. How do we warn a youth that she’s going down the wrong path when every network is telling her that the road down dysfunction is paved in gold? This is a dilemma that will take more than a “reunion-episode” to fix.